Publications - MPIfG

nerverhandlungen auf dem Prüfstand. Baden-Baden: Nomos,
2001, 261 pp.
Economic Effects of European Integration:
Economic Theory and Empirical Research
Patrick Ziltener
Great economic expectations were raised by the implementation
of the European Single Market, which received unprecedented
public attention in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
This project evaluates the empirical research on the real economic
effects of Single Market implementation and compares
them with economic integration theory. The boom in economic
growth research and the wealth of studies resulting from
the European Commission’s “Single Market Review” make it
possible to assess the integration-induced economic processes
in Western Europe. The trends triggered by the implementation
of the Single Market differed greatly from those predicted
by economic integration theorists and their econometric
simulations. Investment and trade in Western Europe were
stimulated, but there was no big bang in the liberalization and
deregulation process resulting in significant impulses for economic
growth. There were few short term effects at all, and
there is no empirical evidence of such long-term effects as
increasing specialization, a “growth bonus” for the countries
involved or “knowledge spillovers.” The most important effect
was the wave of mergers and acquisitions among European
firms, which the economic integration models neglected
completely.
Project duration: October 2000 to March 2001.
Patrick Ziltener
Wirtschaftliche Effekte der europäischen Integration. Theoriebildung
und empirische Forschung. MPIfG Working Paper
01/7. Cologne: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies,
2001. Online:
Public Interest and the Company in Britain
and Germany
Gregory Jackson with Andrew Gamble and Shawn Donnelly
(Political Economy Research Centre, University of Sheffield),
Gavin Kelly (Institute for Public Policy Research, London) and
John Parkinson (University of Bristol)
The company is a vital institution in all modern economies,
but its character varies considerably between national systems.
This research considers the different political and legal
assumptions on which the company is organized, and their
linkage to different understandings of the public interest in
Britain and Germany. In the UK, the company is viewed as a
private association, and its public interest aspects have historically
been identified with the maximization of profits, the
protection of small shareholders, and the reluctance of the
state to specify particular company structures. In Germany,
companies are regarded as constitutional entities with their
own sets of rights and obligations. The public interest is conceived
to include wider responsibilities toward employees and
society. The project looks at these national differences in historical
relation to the politics of company law since the nineteenth
century, and examines how each country’s respective
public interest conceptions
have changed since the 1990s
as a result of economic internationalization
and EU regulation.
The research was
conducted from October
1998 to August 2000, and its
final report was published by
the sponsoring Anglo-German
Foundation for the
Study of Industrial Society
in February 2001.
John Parkinson, Andrew
Gamble, Gavin Kelly (eds.)
The Political Economy of the
Company. Oxford: Hart Publishing,
2001, 320 pp.
Gregory Jackson
Gregory Jackson
Comparative Corporate Governance: Sociological Perspectives.
In: John Parkinson, Andrew Gamble, Gavin Kelly (eds.),
The Political Economy of the Company. Oxford: Hart Publishing,
2001, 265–287
The Transformation of European Corporate
Governance: Changing Ownership and Control
Structures among Europe’s Largest Companies
Bastiaan van Apeldoorn
Project Areas and Research Projects
Although share ownership becomes more dispersed with the
growth of European capital markets, this development seems
to paradoxically coincide with the rise of shareholder power
as corporations increasingly orient themselves to the goal of
“shareholder value.” The latter suggests the possible disembedding
of productive capital from national institutions that
in the past insulated both managers and workers from the discipline
of capital markets within the context of the debate on
globalization and its impact upon capitalist diversity. This
poses the question of whether we are witnessing a convergence
of corporate governance practices in Western Europe
on the “Anglo-Saxon” liberal model. This project seeks to
address these issues by examining the changing structures of
ownership and control, and related practices of corporate
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